Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen. Search eText, Read Online, Study, Discuss. Introduction Though Northanger Abbey is one of Jane Austen's earliest novels, it was not published until after her death--well after she'd established her reputation with works such as Pride and Prejudice, Emma, and Sense and Sensibility. Of all her novels, this one is the most explicitly literary in that it is primarily concerned with books and with readers. In it, Austen skewers the novelistic excesses of her day made popular in such 18th-century Gothic potboilers as Ann Radcliffe's The Mysteries of Udolpho. Decrepit castles, locked rooms, mysterious chests, cryptic notes, and tyrannical fathers all figure into Northanger Abbey, but with a decidedly satirical twist.

Consider Austen's introduction of her heroine: we are told on the very first page that "no one who had ever seen Catherine Morland in her infancy, would have supposed her born to be an heroine." The author goes on to explain that Miss Morland's father is a clergyman with "a considerable independence, besides two good livings--and he was not in the least addicted to locking up his daughters." Furthermore, her mother does not die giving birth to her, and Catherine herself, far from engaging in "the more heroic enjoyments of infancy, nursing a dormouse, feeding a canary-bird, or watering a rose-bush" vastly prefers playing cricket with her brothers to any girlish pastimes. Catherine grows up to be a passably pretty girl and is invited to spend a few weeks in Bath with a family friend. While there she meets Henry Tilney and his sister Eleanor, who invite her to visit their family estate, Northanger Abbey. Once there, Austen amuses herself and us as Catherine, a great reader of Gothic romances, allows her imagination to run wild, finding dreadful portents in the most wonderfully prosaic events.

But Austen is after something more than mere parody; she uses her rapier wit to mock not only the essential silliness of "horrid" novels, but to expose the even more horrid workings of polite society, for nothing Catherine imagines could possibly rival the hypocrisy she experiences at the hands of her supposed friends. In many respects Northanger Abbey is the most lighthearted of Jane Austen's novels, yet at its core is a serious, unsentimental commentary on love and marriage, 19th-century British style. ~ Northanger Abbey was the first book Austen sent off to the publishers, yet it was to be part of a posthumous edition together with Persuasion. What a contrast that must have been. From a soft, calm, old fire kindling again to the first sparks of life. Catherine Morland, a rather plain girl of eighteen from a big family, a kind of ï¿½tomboyï¿½ we would call her who rather likes to play cricket than gather flowers and do needlework, is taken to Bath by kind Mr and Mrs Allen, a woman whose opinion always is rather similar to the rests opinions, even if those contradict one another grievously.

Through Mrs Allen, Catherine gets acquainted with the Thorpes, her brother Jamesï¿½s friends, of whom Isabella will become allegedly her ï¿½best friend in the worldï¿½ and John who will naturally be her very vain future partner. She will also gain the acquaintance of Eleanor and Henry Tilney whom everyone seems to be in awe of. Their father, General Tilney, takes an instant liking to Catherine and at the end of a few weeks she is even invited to their estate Northanger Abbey in Gloucestershire. Catherine who is an avid Radcliff-reader, helped along by Henry himself, instantly fancies it a dark gothic place with corpses, secret passages and no less a wife who has been locked up or even murdered! But can General Tilney, the proprietor, be really so evil? It seems he can be cruel as he throws Catherine out, apparently without any reason, or has he, after a two weeksï¿½ happy stay? Austen and her readers of course ï¿½hasten together to perfect felicityï¿½, though not really for Catherineï¿½s brother who no doubt has learned a great lesson of life.

If one has read the famous Mysteries of Udolpho, the novel must even be of greater amusement. As it is, it is a great, young, sparkly satire of people with some important sincerity and a lesson in friendship.--Submitted by kiki1982 ~ SparkNotes: Northanger Abbey: Important Quotations Explained Important Quotations Explained Volume II, Chapters XIII, XIV, XV & XVI Key Facts No one who had ever seen Catherine Morland in her infancy, would have supposed her born to be an heroine. This is the first line of the novel. By referring to Catherine as a heroine, Austen forces us to recognize that we are reading a novel. Most of Austen's other novels simply drop the reader into the story, and never refer to such main characters as Emma Woodhouse or Elizabeth Bennett as heroines. Northanger Abbey remarks on its own identity as a novel, in part because the fiction- loving Catherine sees herself as the heroine in a novel. From this first sentence on, the narrator notes the gap between how things should be in the ideal life of a fictional heroine, how things actually are for the flawed Catherine.

Northanger Abbey is partly a parody of Gothic novels, but Austen's story is realistic, and ironic humor comes from trying examining ordinary events and people from the perspective of a "heroic" novel. And what are you reading, Miss—?" "Oh! it is only a novel!" replies the young lady in short, only some work in which the greatest powers of the mind are displayed, in which the most thorough knowledge of human nature, the happiest delineation of its varieties, the liveliest effusions of wit and humor are conveyed to the world in the best chosen language. This passage comes from Volume I, Chapter V, when the narrator gives a long and fervent defense of novel-reading. In Austen's time, novels were looked down upon by many people, especially people of the upper classes. The young Jane Austen, writing her first novel, likely felt she had to launch a preemptive strike against critics who would disparage her work. This passage is one of the few places where the narrator makes a long address to the reader. By the second half of the novel, the narrator will have given over to Austen's famous free indirect discourse style of narration.

The advantages of natural folly in a beautiful girl have been already set forth by the capital pen of a sister author; and to her treatment of the subject I will only add, in justice to men, that though to the larger and more trifling part of the sex, imbecility in females is a great enhancement of their personal charms, there is a portion of them too reasonable and too well informed themselves to desire anything more in woman than ignorance. Here the narrator throws a transparent veil of agreement over her real scorn for the "sister author" who praises stupidity in women. She says sarcastically that some men don't require stupidity in women, only ignorance. The implication is that some men enjoy instructing ignorant but teachable women. The further implication is that Henry is such a man. Some critics say that Henry acts the bullying, patronizing father figure to Catherine, pointing out her mistakes and trying to mold her into thinking like he does. He enjoys Catherine's ignorance, for it gives him a chance to teach her. The narrator tells us that Henry enjoys Catherine's youthful mind. When Catherine says that schooling is a torment, Henry replies that perhaps it is, but a few years of torment is worth a lifetime of being able to read.

Catherine enjoys it when Henry teaches her about viewing the landscape from an artist's perspective, as he does immediately after this passage. A generous reading of Henry sees him as a man who loves Catherine's naiveté, not because he prefers to feel smarter than her, but because he expresses his love by teaching her. Isabella, embracing Catherine, thus began: - "Yes, my dear Catherine, it is so indeed; your penetration has not deceived you. - Oh! that arch eye of yours! - It sees through every thing." Catherine replied only by a look of wondering ignorance. This scene, from Volume I, Chapter XV, is one of the funniest in the novel. Isabella Thorpe, the speaker, has been flirting with Catherine's brother, James, for nearly a week. They have become engaged, and Isabella is just about to tell Catherine. Typically, Isabella assumes that Catherine is as gossipy and perceptive as Isabella is herself. By now we realize that Catherine is not very perceptive, is even obtuse, and here she has no idea what Isabella is talking about. The passage demonstrates Catherine's flawed powers of perception.

She cannot fathom the motivations of people, particularly when they are negative, and she cannot read people or their behavior. In this case, she did not guess at the engagement that the entire town of Bath assumed was imminent. Her obliviousness stems from a combination of naiveté and innocence. Catherine needs more experience and a better understanding of what drives people before she can make accurate assumptions about how they will behave. But neither the business alleged, nor the magnificent compliment, could win Catherine from thinking that some very different object must occasion so serious a delay of proper repose something was to be done which could be done only while the household slept; and the probability that Mrs. Tilney yet lived, shut up for causes unknown, and receiving from the pitiless hands of her husband a nightly supply of coarse food, was the conclusion which necessarily followed. This passage, from Volume II, Chapter VIII, is important for two reasons. First, it is an example of Austen's technique of free indirect discourse, a technique by which Austen narrates the story in a tone reflecting what Catherine is thinking or feeling. Here, the narrator conveys Catherine's certainty that something sinister is afoot.

Although the narrator describes Catherine's suspicions with an almost straight face, we can tell the narrator thinks them totally unfounded. Free indirect discourse is similar to the first person perspective, but it is not as limiting. The narrator, while conveying Catherine's feelings, is free to describe things differently than Catherine might, impart information that Catherine does not know, or signal her own opinion about Catherine's thoughts. The passage is also important because it shows how much Catherine has become the victim of her own paranoid fantasy. She came to Northanger Abbey, as she admits later to herself, longing to be scared, and when there she finds nothing scary there, she must invent something herself. Her thoughts being still chiefly fixed on what she had with such causeless terror felt and done, nothing could shortly be clearer than that it had been all a voluntary, self-created delusion Among the Alps and Pyrenees, perhaps, there were no mixed characters [but] among the English, she believed, in their hearts and habits, there was a general though unequal mixture of good and bad. This passage is from Volume II, Chapter X. It shows that Catherine has learned something from her wild speculation about General Tilney and her subsequent scolding by Henry for thinking such a terrible thing.

"The Alps and the Pyrenees" refers to the settings of the Gothic novels that Catherine reads. Here Catherine recognizes the fact that in those novels, people are either all good or all bad, and a bad-tempered widower is an obvious murder suspect. But in the real world of England, Catherine realizes, people can be both good and bad. The real world Catherine refers to is actually a fictional world created by Austen, who suggests that even in fiction, characters need not be purely good or purely evil. In this passage, Austen makes it clear that her project is to create fiction that accurately reflects the world as it is. Northanger Abbey - Jane Austen - Google Books Northanger Abbey 12 Reviews 'What have you been judging from? . . . Dearest Miss Morland, what ideas have you been admitting?' During an eventful season at Bath, young, naive Catherine Morland experiences fashionable society for the first time. She is delighted with her new acquaintances: flirtatious Isabella, who introduces Catherine to the joys of Gothic romances, and sophisticated Henry and Eleanor Tilney, who invite her to their father's house, Northanger Abbey.

There, influenced by novels of horror and intrigue, Catherine comes to imagine terrible crimes committed by General Tilney, risking the loss of Henry's affection, and must learn the difference between fiction and reality, false friends and true. With its broad comedy and irrepressible heroine, Northanger Abbey is the most youthful and optimistic of Jane Austen's work. This edition is based on the first edition of 1818, and includes a new chronology and additional suggestions for further reading. 'These modern editions are to be strongly recommended for their scrupulous texts, informative notes and helpful introductions'� Brian Southam, The Jane Austen Society Edited with an introduction and notes by Marilyn Butler. What people are saying - Write a review User ratings My favorite Jane Austen book... User Review - SaraBella - Target The price was right and the shipping was quick. This book is unabridged and a must read for any fan of Jane Austen. I bought this book for my daughter and she's enjoyed every page. Highly recommend! Read full review Review: Northanger Abbey User Review - Christine - Christianbook.com Passable satire of day-dreams and wild imagination fuelled by romantic Gothic literature.

Opposite of ugly, filthy cesspool which is modern horror genre, these dreamy books would make sleazy Stephen King to tear his hair! Read full review Selected pages The Penguin Edition of the Novels of Jane Austen vii Milton Abbey before and after Lord Miltons Improvements 238 View all » Common terms and phrases All Book Search results &raquo; About the author (2003) Jane Austen was born on December 16, 1775 at Steventon near Basingstoke, the seventh child of the rector of the parish. She lived with her family at Steventon until they moved to Bath when her father retired in 1801. After his death in 1805, she moved around with her mother; in 1809, they settled in Chawton, near Alton, Hampshire. Here she remained, except for a few visits to London, until in May 1817 she moved to Winchester to be near her doctor. There she died on July 18, 1817. As a girl Jane Austen wrote stories, including burlesques of popular romances.

Her works were only published after much revision, four novels being published in her lifetime. These are Sense and Sensibility (1811), Pride and Prejudice (1813), Mansfield Park (1814) and Emma (1816). Two other novels, Northanger Abbey and Persuasion, were published posthumously in 1818 with a biographical notice by her brother, Henry Austen, the first formal announcement of her authorship. Persuasion was written in a race against failing health in 1815-16. She also left two earlier compositions, a short epistolary novel, Lady Susan, and an unfinished novel, The Watsons. At the time of her death, she was working on a new novel, Sanditon, a fragmentary draft of which survives. Northanger Abbey – Jane Austen Categories: Jane Austen News Tags: Bridget Jones , christmas , Christmas Jumper , Eastbourne , Jane Austen 2017 , jane austen news , Literary tour , Lucy Worsley , mark darcy , Northanger Abbey , Peregrine Leave a comment Share this: What’s the Jane Austen News this week?

Jane Austen’s England – Limited Edition American travel company Peregrine Adventures have an excellent Jane Austen literary tour planned for 2017. The limited edition tour is timed to commemorate the 200th year anniversary of Jane Austen’s death and will visit destinations in Southern England significant to Jane Austen’s life (including Bath and the Jane Austen Centre). It will also include towns and cities that inspired her work (such as Lyme Regis), and visit film locations where some of the films based on her novels have been shot. Highlights include a regency dance class with an expert in historical dance, and a talk about regency fashion with a period costume expert. The tour will be led by a Peregrine leader, but there will be various local expert guides at different locations within the tour, some of whom are members of the Jane Austen Society. Having looked at the full programme we’re rather impressed. So if you’re looking for a thorough tour of Jane Austen’s England, but don’t fancy trying to plan your own, this might be of interest as your summer holiday next year?

The eight day tour begins on June the 12th, and we’re looking forward to welcoming the Peregrine tour group to the centre on the 16th. Trend Setter – Mr Darcy and his Christmas Jumper Colin Firth was certainly responsible for the wet-shirt obsession which gripped much of the nation following his performance in the 1995 (more…) Posted on Categories: Jane Austen News Tags: Austenistan , Bromley , Cate Morland , Dominic Cooper , Emma Approved , Frankenstein MD , jane austen news , JASP , Laaleen Khan , Lizzie Bennet Diaries , Northanger Abbey , pemberley digital , School Librarian of the Year Award Leave a comment Share this: What’s the Jane Austen News this week? Amazing Librarians Up For Award Libraries are wonderful, magical places, and one of the things that helps the to be such is their dedicated librarians. So, in order to honour the work of these fantastic people who work in school libraries and help children to become lovers of books from an early age, the School Librarian of the Year Award was set up.

We have to say, this year’s honour list, from which an overall winner will be announced in a ceremony at Covent Gardens in London on October 3rd, has some truly amazing examples of librarians who go above and beyond in their jobs. Amy McKay, librarian at Corby Business Academy in Northamptonshire, has hosted barbecues, sleepovers, a comic-con event, a zombie-apocalypse and staff-pupil battles of the books to introduce pupils to different genres and authors. Lauren Thow of Portobello High School in Edinburgh has research lessons for pupils, in which she occasionally dresses as Sir Alan Sugar and has established a Portobello High literature festival. Sophie Chalmers library at Southbrook School in Devon is housed inside a double-decker bus (how wonderful is that?) and she has established a reading-buddy scheme, connecting her own special school with the local mainstream secondary. Alison Tarrant helped to establish her library at Cambourne Village College in Cambridgeshire, and this involved the donning of hard hats and high-visibility jackets as the build began.

But the one that really caught our eye was Rachel (more…) Posted on Categories: Sequels and Spinoffs , Uncategorized Tags: austenprose , author , grove press , Henry Tilney , Laurel Ann Nattress , Northanger Abbey , Scotland , the austen project , val mcdermid , vampires Leave a comment Share this: From the desk of Laurel Ann Nattress: In the second installment of The Austen Project, bestselling Scottish crime writer Val McDermid takes a stab at a contemporary reimagining of Jane Austen’s most under-appreciated novel, Northanger Abbey. Written in the late 1790’s when Austen was a fledgling writer, this Gothic parody about young heroine Catherine Morland’s first experiences in Bath society and her romance with the dishy hero Henry Tilney is one of my favorite Austen novels. Fresh and funny, the writing style is not as accomplished as her later works but no one can dismiss the quality of Austen’s witty dialogue nor her gentle joke at the melodramatic Gothic fiction so popular in her day. I was encouraged by the choice of McDermid as author and intrigued to see how she would transport the story into the 21st century.

Our modern heroine, sixteen-year-old Cat Morland, is a vicar’s daughter living a rather disappointing life in the Piddle Valley of Dorset. Her mother and father seldom argued and never fought, and her siblings were so average she despaired of ever discovering any dark family secrets to add excitement to her life. Homeschooled, she can’t comprehend history or French or algebra, but delights in reading to fuel her vivid imagination, favoring ghost stories, zombie and vampire tales. After years of exploring the narrow confines of her home turf she craves adventure abroad.

Rich neighbors Susie and Andrew Allen come to her rescue by inviting her to travel with them and attend (more…) Posted on Categories: Arts and Entertainments , Uncategorized Tags: Arnold Paole , gothic , Northanger Abbey , novel , Oxford English Dictionary , polidori , val mcdermid , vampire , Vampyre , Western Europe Leave a comment Share this: The “modern” vampire genre (or Vampyre, if you will) stems from James Polidori’s 1819 novel, The Vampyre, however the Gothic craze of the entire Regency era led to this printing, and in fact, real events in Europe led to the fascination of all things mysterious and horrible, as characterized in Jane Austen’s novel, Northanger Abbey. It should come as no suprise, then, that Northanger Abbey has finally been rewritten as an actual Vampire inspired novel (see Val McDermid’s Northanger Abbey , 2014). Writers have been trying to mash the two genres for years now, beginning with Stephanie Meyer’s Twilight (supposedly a nod to Pride and Prejudice) and Amanda Grange’s Mr.

Darcy, Vampyre , to Jane Bites Back , and other similar tales. According to legend, vampires are mythical beings who subsist by feeding on the life essence (generally in the form of blood) of living creatures (not unlike General Tilney, one might suppose…) In folkloric tales, undead vampires often visited loved ones and caused mischief or deaths in the neighbourhoods they inhabited when they were alive. They wore shrouds and were often described as bloated and of ruddy or dark countenance, markedly different from today’s gaunt, pale vampire which dates from the early 1800s. Although vampiric entities have been recorded in most cultures, the term vampire was not popularised until the early 18th century, after an influx of vampire superstition into Western Europe from areas where vampire legends were frequent, such as the Balkans and Eastern Europe,although local variants were also known by different names, such as vrykolakas in Greece and strigoi in Romania. This increased level of vampire superstition in Europe led to what can only be called mass hysteria and in some cases resulted in corpses actually being staked and people being accused of vampirism.

Frotspiece to Polidori’s “The Vampyre”. The charismatic and sophisticated vampire of modern fiction was born in 1819 with the publication of The Vampyre by John Polidori; the story was highly successful and arguably the most influential vampire work of the early 19th century. However, it is Bram Stoker’s 1897 novel Dracula which is remembered as the quintessential vampire novel and provided the basis of the modern vampire legend. The success of this book spawned a distinctive vampire genre, still popular in the 21st century, with books, films, and television shows. The vampire has since become a dominant figure in the horror genre. Northanger Abbey, by Jane Austen We are in the process of adding the Northanger Abbey text to Austen.com. The complete text from Project Gutenberg is here . Chapter descriptions are designed to be very vague and cryptic. They are for people who are familiar with the book to help them find the chapter they want, and they are not designed for the student who might be looking for a quick way to get out of reading the novel. Chapter 1 -- An unlikely heroine is introduced, educated, and brought alone for an adventure.

Chapter 2 -- Preparations for a trip. A crowded ball full of strangers. Gratifying public acknowledgment of Catherine's charms. Chapter 3 -- A gentleman is introduced and lively conversation ensues. An irrational smirk, an examination of muslin, and the importance of journal-keeping. Chapter 4 -- Old friends and new friends meet. A very close friendship is established. Chapter 5 -- The friendship is advanced. Novels are love. The joys of novel-reading. Chapter 6 -- Two friends meet in the pump room and discuss men: fictional, absent, and present. Chapter 7 -- Brothers and sisters. "Oh D-- it!" A scintillating discussion about gigs. Predilections emerge. Chapter 8 -- Another assembly. The hero returns! And brings his sister! Catherine is twice plagued by terribly tragic timing and is very (silently) distressed. Chapter 9 -- A tiresome drive. A man is decided to be quite disagreeable company. Chapter 10 -- A more sensible sister is met and unwittingly confided in. A cotillion ball! A contract of mutual agreeableness is established. Bath's amusement and the intellectual poverty of the country. Another handsome strange is introduced.

Chapter 11 -- A walk is given up in favor of a driver to a romantic castle. A young woman is tricked! Catherine is mad and sad. Chapter 12 -- Two attempts at apology; one is successful. A charming artlessness that many a Henry cannot be insensible. Catherine appears to have won over Team Tilney. Chapter 13 -- In a scene extremely gratifying to the reader, Catherine employs her lessons learned and is unable to be persuaded, commits a small act of impropriety, and avoids a larger one. Chapter 14 -- A delightful morning walk, with "nice" conversation. Tormenting historians are successfully defended. An ignorant woman is charming and a sister laments that her brother cannot be serious. Chapter 15 -- Isabella has news, and detests grandeur. John proposes to try a song; Catherine cannot sing. Chapter 16 -- A disappointing dinner. A handsome captain arrives and pesters a young lady until she will dance with him. Isabella receives disappointing news from James, and Catherine (only temporarily, for she is not clever) wonders at the real source of her friend's disappointment. Chapter 17 -- Miss Tilney forms a very bold wish.

Catherine is favored beyond every other human creature. Henry Tilney! An Abbey! Chapter 18 -- A disconcerting meeting in the pump room. Isabella is not her usual self. Chapter 19 -- A woman in love with one man cannot flirt with another. Henry Tilney must know best. Chapter 20 -- The bustle of going is not pleasant, until Catherine joins Henry (dashing in his greatcoat!) in the curricle. Poor Matilda! An anticlimatic arrival at the Abbey. Chapter 21 -- An imagination runs wild on a stormy night; repose must be absolutely impossible. Chapter 22 -- Catherine is humbled to the dust. She also has just learned to love hyacinths. Taken on a tour of the grounds, she comes to find another object of intense interest, and works herself up into a state of virtuous indignation. Chapter 23 -- A rather dull house tour (save for the greatcoats). The late Mrs Tilney is promoted from murdered to merely imprisoned. Chapter 24 -- Catherine opens the forbidden door! Remember that we are English! Dearest Miss Morland, what ideas have you been admitting? Chapter 25 -- A distressing letter.

Dearest Catherine, beware how you give your heart! Chapter 26 -- A wonderful Wednesday at Woodston! Catherine encounters the most comfortable and prettiest rooms in the world! Chapter 27 -- A letter provokes ire. Such a strain of shallow artifice cannot impose even upon Catherine. Catherine is complimented out of bitterness. Chapter 28 -- The general leaves for London. A loss may sometimes be a gain. The general abruptly returns. The nominal mistress of Northanger Abbey is a most unwilling messenger. Catherine leaves the Abbey. Chapter 29 -- The heroine returns in an unceremonious manner unbecoming of a novel. She is ineffectually comforted by her family. Chapter 30 -- An unexpected visitor raises the spirits of a Useless Catherine (and saves her from more education). A heart already given is happily claimed. Chapter 31 -- One marriage allows for another! A happy ending is given to the most deserving of suffering women. The mystery of the washing bills is solved! And everybody smiled. To begin perfect happiness at the respective ages of twenty-six and eighteen is to do pretty well.

Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen | PenguinRandomHouse.com About Northanger Abbey Austen’s witty exploration of the perils of mistaking fiction for reality During an eventful season at Bath, young, naïve Catherine Morland experiences the joys of fashionable society for the first time. She is delighted with her new acquaintances: flirtatious Isabella, who shares Catherine’s love of Gothic romance and horror, and sophisticated Henry and Eleanor Tilney, who invite her to their father’s mysterious house, Northanger Abbey. There, her imagination influenced by novels of sensation and intrigue, Catherine imagines terrible crimes committed by General Tilney. With its broad comedy and irrepressible heroine, this is the most youthful and and optimistic of Jane Austen’s works. For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

About Northanger Abbey Part of Penguin’s beautiful hardback Clothbound Classics series, designed by the award-winning Coralie Bickford-Smith, these delectable and collectible editions are bound in high-quality colourful, tactile cloth with foil stamped into the design. During an eventful season at Bath, young, naïve Catherine Morland experiences the joys of fashionable society for the first time. She is delighted with her new acquaintances: flirtatious Isabella, who shares Catherine’s love of Gothic romance and horror, and sophisticated Henry and Eleanor Tilney, who invite her to their father’s mysterious house, Northanger Abbey. There, her imagination influenced by novels of sensation and intrigue, Catherine imagines terrible crimes committed by General Tilney. With its broad comedy and irrepressible heroine, this is the most youthful and and optimistic of Jane Austen’s works. Get the news you want from Penguin Random House Praise “Jane Austen is the Rosetta stone of literature.” —Anna Quindlen About Jane Austen Though the domain of Jane Austen’s novels was as circumscribed as her life, her caustic wit and keen observation made her the equal of the greatest novelists in any language.

Born the seventh child of the rector of Steventon, Hampshire,… More about Jane Austen About Jane Austen Though the domain of Jane Austen’s novels was as circumscribed as her life, her caustic wit and keen observation made her the equal of the greatest novelists in any language. Born the seventh child of the rector of Steventon, Hampshire,… More about Jane Austen Product Details SparkNotes: Northanger Abbey: Analysis of Major Characters Analysis of Major Characters Themes, Motifs, and Symbols Catherine Morland Northanger Abbey was the first novel Jane Austen wrote. It is also the novel most closely related to the novels that influenced her reading, and parodies some of those novels, particularly Anne Radcliffe's Gothic novel The Mysteries of Udolpho. In creating Catherine, the heroine of Northanger Abbey, Austen creates the heroine of a Gothic novel. Both Austen and Catherine portray Catherine's life in heroic terms—Austen humorously, and Catherine seriously, especially when she suspects General Tilney of murdering his wife. Because Austen couches her portrayal of Catherine in irony, Catherine is realistically portrayed as deficient in experience and perception, unlike the heroines of Gothic and romance novels.

Catherine fails to recognize the obvious developing relationship between her brother James and her friend Isabella; she fails to recognize Isabella's true nature until long after it has hurt her brother; she accidentally leads John Thorpe into thinking she loves him; and most significantly, she embarrasses herself in front of Henry Tilney when he finds out she suspects his father of murder. While Catherine is an avid reader of novels, she is inexperienced at reading people, and this is what causes many of the problems she encounters. By the end of the novel, she has become a much better judge of character, having learned from her mistakes with Isabella and General Tilney. She is also, perhaps, a bit more cynical about people, as Henry is. Ultimately, it is her integrity and caring nature that win Henry's heart and bring her happiness. Henry Tilney Critics argue over Henry's role in the novel. Some critics criticize Henry for patronizing Catherine, for telling her how to see the world and mocking her naiveté. This criticism is partially accurate. Henry is often amused by Catherine's naïve nature, and playfully guides her to a better understanding, as can be seen during their walk around Beechen Cliff and on the ride to Northanger Abbey.

But his behavior, especially when compared to that of the boorish John Thorpe, is always gentle and caring. He adores his sister, Eleanor, and loves his father, although he often disagrees with him. Though less than ten years older than Catherine, Henry is far more perceptive than she. He is probably the most perceptive figure in the novel. Henry has read hundreds of books and, as a clergyman, hundreds of people, and this has given him an understanding of human interaction far superior to that of his friends and relatives. General Tilney General Tilney comes the closest of any character to being an antagonist in Northanger Abbey, though that term is too strong to describe his role. When Catherine suspects Tilney of murdering his wife, she perceives him as a villain. In fact, the General's true crimes consist of being too concerned with wealth and finery, and perhaps of robbing Catherine of her imaginative vision of a real Gothic abbey. Tilney is not a storybook villain, or even a villain from a Gothic novel. He is realistic man, a wealth-obsessed real estate developer who gets in the way of his children's happiness.

Like John Thorpe, he is given to boasting and preoccupied with himself when he is not meddling in his children's lives. Isabella Thorpe Although Isabella cannot be called a villain, she causes many problems over the course of the novel. Isabella manages to weasel a marriage proposal out of James, but when she discovers that he is not as rich as she assumed, she begins flirting with Frederick Tilney. Isabella can be seen as a gold-digger interested only in money, as an attractive girl who cannot refuse the attention of a young man, particularly a wealthy or well-known one, or as someone who simply can't figure out what she wants. But most modern interpretations of Isabella analyze her as one of Austen's ironic caricatures, an exaggeration of the emphasis on wealth and position that often preoccupied high society.

The Likable Hero and Heroine of Northanger Abbey | Jane Austen's World The Likable Hero and Heroine of Northanger Abbey January 19, 2008 by Vic In Jane Austen’s words, Henry Tilney, the hero of Northanger Abbey, seemed to be about “four or five and twenty, was rather tall, had a pleasing countenance, a very intelligent and lively eye, and, if not quite handsome, was very near it.” In addition he came from a respectable family in Gloucestershire. A second son, he had just recently been ordained. Even more attractive than his respectability are his sense of humor, his close relationship with his sister, and the fact that he can make such insightful statements as this one: “Miss Morland, no one can think more highly of the understanding of women than I do. In my opinion, nature has given them so much that they never find it necessary to use more than half.” Click here to read Oh, Henry , a wonderful post about Mr. Tilney. Austenprose also quotes our fabulous Henry. No wonder our young Catherine lost her heart to this charming but wise young man.

Catherine, NA’s heroine, is sweet, adorable, and unworldly. As she reads her favorite gothic novels, she can imagine herself in the same perilous situations as the fictional heroines. Her imagination is so vivid that her unsupported suspicions about Henry’s mother’s death places her in an awkward situation with the young man who has stolen her heart. Catherine’s infatuation with Henry is such that her flattery flatters his ego, and he starts to fall in love with her. When General Tilney boots Catherine unceremoniously out of Northanger Abbey, unchaperoned and in the middle of the night, Henry’s eyes are opened to his father’s unpardonable behavior. He sees that in one sense, Catherine was right about his father’s monstrous behavior. As for Catherine, who in this world has not met a young coltish miss who suddenly grows up and fits this description by Jane?: At fifteen, appearances were mending; she began to curl her hair and long for balls; her complexion improved, her features were softened by plumpness and colour, her eyes gained more animation, and her figure more consequence.

Her love of dirt gave way to an inclination for finery, and she grew clean as she grew smart; she had now the pleasure of sometimes hearing her father and mother remark on her personal improvement. “Catherine grows quite a good-looking girl – she is almost pretty today,” were words which caught her ears now and then; and how welcome were the sounds! To look almost pretty is an acquisition of higher delight to a girl who has been looking plain the first fifteen years of her life than a beauty from her cradle can ever receive. In fact, these two characters are so likable, that one tends to forget that Jane wrote Northanger Abbey as a spoof of the Gothic novel so wildly popular at the turn of the 19th century. For an excellent review of the upcoming Masterpiece Classic presentation this Sunday at 9 p.m. EST, visit Remotely Connected and read Heather Laurence’s and Natalie Zee Drieu’s excellent thoughts on this film adaptation. Read my other Northanger Abbey posts here . Update: Arti just reminded me of the Andrew Davies interview yesterday, which I forgot to include. Click here to enter Arti’s site, Ripple Effects , and read the interview. You can also find Mr.

Davies NPR interview on Jane Austen Today. Click here to listen.

Question: Who was the heroine of Jane Austen's novel Northanger Abbey?
Answer: Catherine Morland